


Parlor Tricks

by aphelion_orion



Category: Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis
Genre: M/M, Post-Game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-31
Updated: 2010-12-31
Packaged: 2017-10-14 06:52:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/146577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aphelion_orion/pseuds/aphelion_orion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If this were cash, he'd end up broke and naked before long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Parlor Tricks

**Author's Note:**

> I'll be using the Japanese names for the characters, since the English version destroys most of the cool references to alchemy hidden therein.

"I raise ten."

The pebbles go skittering as soon as he sets the neat little pyramid down, the ground too uneven to keep them in one place. He sighs, reaches out to hoard them back into one pile, the habit born from years and years of stacking coins on tavern tables and utterly useless out here in the wilderness, a good day's walk from the next village. A childish way to place bets, perhaps, but he'd really prefer not to bring money into it at this point, considering who he's playing against.

Across from him, Vain takes the extra two seconds to glance from his expression down to the sum of pebbles and back up again in a guilty flicker that means he knows he shouldn't, should keep his eyes on Roxis' face, but can't quite help himself.

It's just one of the things that make Vain a terrible poker player, so easily distracted by the smallest of movements. Roxis guesses that sort of behavior is hard to get rid of when he spent most of his life fending for himself in the woods, but now it makes Vain the most vulnerable prey he's ever had at the other end of the card table (or the campfire, as it were), and if he felt so inclined, he could throw Vain off in the hundred tiny ways any professional player knows, fix his collar or shake his head or toy with the cards, and Vain's eyes would follow, inadvertently and increasingly flustered.

Roxis even had to let the poker face fall in order to get them anywhere at all, because Vain would fold at a smirk, start fidgeting at a raised eyebrow, or become confident in victory at a frown. This is the first match that is lasting past three rounds, and only because Roxis is being generous.

"Ummm..." Vain pauses, nervously stroking Sulfur's head in his lap, and stares at his own hand in an obvious move that even village idiots know better than to do. "I fold."

"With three jacks, boy? Don't you like your money?" At his side, Eital tilts her head, giving Vain a lazy stare.

"Um." Vain reaches out as if to take the cards back, stops under Roxis' glare.

"He's supposed to figure that out on his own."

"He doesn't seem to be doing such a terribly good job of it," Eital says, stretching her paws in an imitation of a shrug.

"O-oi," Vain says, and even in the shadows painted by the flickering flames, Roxis can tell that he's turning red. "I'm just... not used to this kind of thing."

He refrains from pointing out that Vain has been getting used to it for the past two hours, with no signs of progress. Unless he counts Vain not constantly raising the bets and then calling bluffs in a mistaken idea of competition as progress.

"If this were cash, he'd end up broke and naked before long." Eital is grinning, showing rows of sharp teeth, and he knows that smirk all too well, knows that she's setting out to make him squirm—

"Then again, perhaps you'd like that, hm?"

—and the actual jab is always so much worse than he could possibly expect.

The mental equivalent of a swat does nothing to dull her laughter, ringing freely through his mind and manifesting as throaty chuckles in the real world. If someone had told him beforehand that this is what sharing soul space with a mana is all about, that he'd be spending every day of his life getting mercilessly tormented by the most devious entity on the planet and having to threaten her with newspaper whacks to the nose, he'd never have tried to pursue a pact.

Eital clucks her tongue. "Now, now, you know you love me."

"I'd love for you not to say such things," he says stiffly, tilting the cards to show his own worthless hand to Vain, before gathering them all for a new round. "Let's do this again, and this time, try to read my moves."

"...Do people really do that?" Vain is frowning, preoccupied with the conversation. "Take the clothes, I mean?"

Roxis inhales sharply, trying his best to ignore his mana's new outburst of merriment and derision. He's certainly not about to explain strip poker to Vain, but at the same time, it's better to be blunt about the ways of the world. Vain has the unfortunate tendency not to question others' intentions until it's too late, always taking words at face value, and this card game is just further proof of that, Vain unable to see through the simplest of bluffs.

Shrugging, he starts mixing the cards. He's seen more than one card game that ended in the loss of house and home, and human dignity. It needs a special mind to gamble and be able to walk away, one that doesn't let the promise of money and victory cloud the player's judgment, but Vain isn't really that kind of person. Once he's in battle, he's setting out to win, and while that has saved their hides more than once, it's not something that's going to go over well when playing cards with the pros.

"Just if you're an idiot and don't know when to quit. You won't be playing against anyone for a good long while—" Or perhaps not ever, if things continue like that, "—but just don't let yourself be goaded into debts."

"Okay."

Roxis has never played cards with a small child before, but he supposes this is as close as it gets, going against someone so trusting and unassuming that they won't even guard their own expressions.

 _Won't, or can't?_ the small voice in the back of his head supplies, the one that was there long before Eital, and he recoils at the thought. It's times like this that he doesn't want to listen to the jaded cynical part of himself that knows how it goes, that this is exactly the kind of trait he would aim for if he were a sick, immortal bastard who wanted to die.

A being who can't say no, can't refuse a wish even if it means pain or murder or a hazard to himself, and if Theophrastus weren't already dead, he'd have half a mind to go hunt him down and string him up by his innards. Not because he's joined the circle of mother hens made up of Gunnar and Philomel and the rest, but because if there's one thing he can't stand, it's people getting off easy, foisting their burdens off on others.

 _/Speaking from experience there?/_ Eital's voice, this time, in that odd cross between curiosity and concern that he wouldn't have thought her capable of not too long ago. It's times like this that he doesn't know whether to be happy or resent the idea of having evolved from being her toy to being her charge.

 _//What's it to you?//_

 _/Touchy, touchy/_ , she mutters, curling up for a nap as a sign that she won't pursue this any further, at least not today. Thankfully, she does seem more inclined to needle him in casual conversation than to go rifling through his memories, as he's not sure he'd be able to stop her from doing so if she tried. Most mana are naturally inquisitive, and he knows of people who'll happily treat theirs as anything from soulmate to personal therapist, but to him, just letting someone shack up in his soul space is more than enough intimacy.

With a sigh, he splits the deck, holding it out to Vain.

"...sorry."

Roxis blinks. "What about?"

"I know I make for a boring opponent," Vain mumbles, his head lowered in that gesture Roxis hates like nothing else, like he's trying to deflect some kind of blame, like he doesn't have any pride or confidence at all.

"This coming from the guy who beat me up thrice in a row today," Roxis snorts, making a show of rotating one shoulder and wincing. It's still sore, not nearly as much as he's pretending now, but dueling is one of the few things Vain's grown to enjoy, one of the few things he's starting to demand on his own, and here's the sickening idea again that maybe Vain was _designed_ not to want things. Roxis really doesn't feel like turning him back into the meek subservient creature he used to be when they first met, all over a stupid card game.

"You'll get the hang of it eventually," he says, ruthlessly suppressing the thought, _I wish you'd get better at this,_ because that would defeat the whole purpose of Vain trying on his own, and he's not sure how well Vain's subconscious can still hear. He doesn't care what the experts believe because all they have to rely on are their instruments, guided by their own prejudices, but he's the one who's spent the last month and a half in close proximity to Vain, watching him eat and fight and sleep, to know that the transformation from mana to human wasn't nearly as complete as everyone thinks.

People praise the gods or curse fate for the things that happen to them, speak of luck and karma or whatever name they can find for events they can't explain. Roxis isn't arrogant enough to assume the world revolves around his personal life, and not ignorant enough to believe that things happen out of nowhere. There are no amazing coincidences, just elements interacting like the ingredients in a crystal flask, but even if he did believe in something like fortune, he'd have to start doubting it now, for the dozen tiny ways in which reality twists to accomodate them every day. The way they sometimes stumble upon the rarest and most expensive materials as if someone dropped and forgot about them, the way some syntheses succeed even with inferior ingredients when they need them to, the way they always just happen to find a monster-free spot to set up camp for the night.

The tests might identify Vain as human, but Roxis knows he isn't, not wholly. If Theophrastus was twisted enough to create an artificial life just to fulfill his own death wish, he was certainly twisted enough to take every measure to ensure that life wouldn't be able to defy him.

 _A genie can't wish to escape his own bottle; he can only turn the bottle invisible._

The thing that Theophrastus planted in him might have been spirited away, but a fraction of that power remains subconsciously— and, Roxis suspects, too deeply ingrained to ever be fully removed. Vain hasn't noticed yet, either too naive or too good at lying to himself, and Roxis has resolved not to do anything to disturb the game of make-believe, rob Vain of a chance at a normal life. As much as he might be in favor of confronting life's hardships head-on, here's a boy who was forced to kill his own father the moment he was born, and to Roxis, that's enough hardship to last a lifetime. If that makes him a hypocrite, then so be it.

"You think I will?" Vain has perked up a little, his fingers no longer fluttering across Sulfur's fur.

Pushing back his glasses, Roxis shrugs again. "You're just missing the practice. Let's call it a day for now. Here. I'll show you something else." He fans out the deck. "Pick a card."

"Any card?"

"Any card."

After a brief pause, Vain pulls out the ace of spades, and Roxis starts cutting the rest of the deck into small piles. The trick is nothing fancy to any half-decent dealer, spelling out the name of the chosen card by memorizing the lowest one and counting them to get the right amount.

"Wow. And that works every time?"

"Sure. That's why it's called a trick, after all."

"But I bet it took a long time to learn, right?" Vain prompts, the closest to prying for answers he'll come, enamored with the idea that Roxis' cards can read his mind and spell out the future. For some reason, it's a nice feeling, even though he's seen the same look on the faces of peasants hundreds of times, all the fairs his father dragged him to in order to show off his talented son, who'd rely on the powers of superstition and alchemy to foretell love and loss, birth and death, in order to earn his school entrance fees.

"My father was a good teacher."

Pretty much the only thing he was good at were the cards; that, and holding onto a crumbling family name.

"That must've been fun." Vain is smiling slightly, most likely in the process of building up a fantasy of what it would have been like to have a father who'd teach him card tricks instead of how to kill.

"It wasn't, actually," Roxis says, uncomfortable with the subject but more uncomfortable with the idea of Vain using his father for an approximation of what an ideal parent is like. "The first child in three generations who had the gift, and it got used for hatching salamanders from eggs and turning flames blue and green."

Vain draws his brows together, his fingers resuming their patterns on the cat's back. "But that doesn't..."

"Have anything to do with alchemy?" A small part of him is hoping that his tone isn't sounding as bitter as he feels. "Well, no. But whatever pays the bills, right?"

"I guess so?" A hesitant question, because Vain doesn't know whether he's meant to agree. "Is that why you..."

Came to Al-Rhevis, he wants to ask, but doesn't quite dare, probably remembering all the times Roxis got angry whenever his workshop mates were trying to prod. It's not exactly wonderful, thinking about what the name of Rosenkreuz has become, a bunch of old fools clinging to past fame and consoling themselves with the idea that they finally have an heir who is going to single-handedly restore them to power and glory, but it's easier to talk about it with someone who won't coo in dismay and make fauxpologies when they learn the truth. Conceited to feel better sharing it with Vain, of all people, maybe, but he can excuse it with the idea that it's a trade-off, one secret for another.

"It was nice being in a place where salamanders were only used as ingredients," he says, and chooses not to mention the letters he'd get from home, the ones he used to feed to the flames of the synthesis cauldron when nobody was there to see. He doesn't like to think about the fact that he and Vain might not be that different after all, that if he hadn't been coerced into joining Gunnar's workshop, he'd have spent his school years striving to live someone else's life in a mistaken sense of filial duty.

"But..." Vain is biting his lip. "Should... is it okay for us... I mean, is it okay for you to be with me?"

A snerk on the edge of his consciousness, Eital not nearly as asleep as she's pretending to be, but right now, Roxis doesn't really have it within himself to blush at the phrasing, a tad more preoccupied with what the family would do if they knew he was sharing breakfast with the scientific miracle of the century. Have conniptions, no doubt.

"Oh, my father should be having fits right about now," he says, smirking, envisioning the old control freak going nuts trying to find his prodigal son. "He's had a month. But if there's one thing a Rosenkreuz doesn't do, it's break an oath, so... I can't go anywhere until I pound you into dust."

The words are a magic spell in their own right, capable of derailing experiments, peaceful afternoons, and stupid apologies. Vain ducks his head, a spark dancing in his eyes that he wouldn't have managed a year ago, and it's more than enough proof that he's on his way to breaking out of his design template. "You wish."

"Big talk," Roxis says, allowing his own smirk to grow broader, familiar lines in a familiar song. It's a new thing, this guilt-free existence, and he's not about to let the old man haunt the contentment he's built for himself. "You're going to eat those words tomorrow, you know."

Vain's grin is electric, part kid and part something else that he can't readily identify. "Right. What was that score again?"

"One-hundred and twenty-six against seventy-two," he says, a quick mental tally revealing that yes, they've indeed spent every day of the past one and a half months keeping up that competition. He shakes his head, collecting the cards and reaching for his sleeping bag. "Just be glad I'm not counting tonight's losses or you'd end up on your knees faster than you'd like. Take first watch and I'll consider them water under the bridge."

"...alright."

Over time, Roxis has grown to ignore all kinds of unwelcome talk — his father's droning voice wallowing in nostalgia, the chitter-whispers in the school corridors whenever he passed by as the son of fallen nobility, even Eital's mocking lilt whenever she sees it fit to comment on something that isn't her business. And now, he feels comfortable ignoring the little voice that comes floating back as he stretches out on the ground, pillowing his head on his arm, the little voice whispering that Vain couldn't be more wrong about his wish if he tried.

  


-Fin-

\-----

 **A/N:** \- Yeah, I twisted things a little. I find this a bit more interesting than assuming Vain just up and became a totally regular human, so yeah. He's some sort of go-between now. Mortal, but by no means normal. XD  
\- For some reason, Wikipedia still gets Roxis' Japanese name wrong. *shrug* Meh, don't care. The katakana spell out "Rosenkreuz," and that makes it infinitely cooler since, whoo, [Rosicrucians](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Rosenkreuz).


End file.
